Biz Beat Blog

Dallas area home appreciation continued to slow in June, with prices up 8 percent from a year earlier

A Dallas house for sale this week. (Sheryl Jean/The Dallas Morning News)

Dallas-area home prices rose about 8 percent in June from a year earlier — the slowest growth rate in a year, according to the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index released today.

Experts expected home appreciation would continue to slow after months of double-digit price increases. Earlier this year, Dallas-area home prices were growing at more than 10 percent.

Nationwide, home prices rose an average of 8.1 percent in 20 cities tracked by Case-Shiller.

“Home price gains continue to ease as they have since last fall,” David Blitzer, chairman of S&P’s Index Committee, said in today’s report. “For the first time since February 2008, all cities showed lower annual rates than the previous month. Other housing indicators — starts, existing home sales and builders’ sentiment — are positive. Taken together, these point to a more normal housing sector.”

In June, average home prices in the 20 cities returned to their fall 2004 levels.

In the Dallas area, the average home price has risen steadily and the number of homes listed for sale has declined over the last 12 months, according to data from Texas A&M University’s Real Estate Center. It shows that the average price of a Dallas-area home sold through the Multiple Listing Service was $271,200 in June.

Low housing inventory has driven up prices. The number of houses for sale on MLS has been below 3 months worth since the start of 2013, compared with an historical norm of 6.5 months, according to Texas A&M.

Mortgage rates are still low, but as they start to rise some time next year, they “will further dampen price gains,” Blitzer forecast.

“Bargain basement mortgage rates won’t continue forever; recent improvements in the labor markets and comments from [Federal Reserve chairwoman] Janet Yellen and others hint that interest rates could rise as soon as the first quarter of 2015,” he said.

In January, researchers at Case-Shiller and CoreLogic Inc., a real estate research firm, predicted that annual home appreciation would slow to about 4 percent through this fall in the Dallas area and nationwide.

Still, Dallas-area home prices are about 25 percent higher than during the recession’s trough in early 2009.

Top Picks

Comments

To post a comment, log into your chosen social network and then add your comment below. Your comments are subject to our Terms of Service and the privacy policy and terms of service of your social network. If you do not want to comment with a social network, please consider writing a letter to the editor.

ArchivesAbout this blog

About This Blog

Daily breaking news alerts from the Business staff of The Dallas Morning News.